I took this beautiful picture at Tam Coc, Vietnam while biking in the countryside. The countryside I was told not to go to because it was remote, rural, off the beaten track. So I went. I do not believe simply because I’m told. I have to see it, experience it and only then will I make my own opinion of it and decide if it works for me or not.
The oneness I breathed while I was there and tried to capture in this picture comes from the earth, water, sky, sun… all the elements working together. My own elements had to come together too to take in such a view. The mind had to decide to go where I was told not to, the body had to bike hard through the muddy fields to get to this view, and the heart had to remain open to take it all in once I got there.
This is teamwork of all the parts coming together, finding a way to work together—to include, to integrate. I’m skeptical when I’m told by certain people that, to become mindful, I have to learn how to turn off my mind. I do not believe “turning off” or “taming” the mind are verbs which describe integration or inclusion. They create a sense of dichotomy for me: good and bad, reality and illusion. It feels as if I’m being forced to choose one over the other for my so called well-being.
Mindfulness has become one of the most fashionable, and probably one of the most misunderstood and incorrectly used words in the last decades. Everything is stamped and branded with it to be marketed. And I myself would have never thought I would use it or even write about it. I believe the M-word is used and abused in a way that neglects and destroys its core as an integration practice.
I believe in integration, in inclusion, in finding practices that support us to live and integrate shadow and light, rather than choosing one over the other. I believe we have to embrace and accept all the parts and elements we are made of.
How can we pay attention by turning off something within us? I thought mindfulness was the practice of paying attention to the whole not only to part of it. Simone Weil said it beautifully: “We have to try to cure our faults by attention and not by will” and so I too believe.
For me, in turning off, there is an element of attempting to control something that is not pleasurable. There is an element of negative judgement in turning off the mind. True mindfulness practice is commitment to both pleasurable and non-pleasurable experiences without turning off or controlling.
Parents know that telling kids to “turn off,” to stop asking questions, creates the feeling of being unaccepted. It’s far more effective to sit with the child and try to understand the questions and what’s behind the curiosity and wondering—to be mindful. When the child feels seen, understood, and heard, she will stop (until the next round) asking questions, knowing there’s space for her to voice without judgement.
The parts that we try to control by shutting down or turning off, the mind that we judge as the source of our mindless life, the remote areas we’re told not to go, are the ones that need to be visited, need to be listened to. When we visit those remote unknown areas, we are required to pay non-judgmental attention, we are required to tune in so that the attention becomes the contemplative practice through which we can transform and grow.
My “take away” from the inspiring view at Tam Coc is that true mindfulness practice supports the development of an open heart and an open mind, by absorbing and tuning in to what we see, what we feel. Through what our mind wonders or worries about, we get to understand a bit more of ourselves and learn how to become more inclusive of others.
Go to those places you are told not to and turn your whole self in, not off, to find inclusion and integration.
[su_panel background=”#f2f2f2″ color=”#000000″ border=”0px none #ffffff” shadow=”0px 0px 0px #ffffff”]Fateme Banishoeib is the founder @ Understand Diversity 2 B Inclusive. Her work in the Bio-Pharma industry over the past 15 years has led her from R&D to operations to strategic planning. She is on a mission to talk business in poetry and through poetry find resolution to complex themes like diversity & inclusion. She can be found at www.fatemebanishoeib.com and on Twitter @FBanishoeib
